■ Electronics
Flu-foiling appliance touted
South Korean giant LG Electronics plans to turn global worry of a deadly avian influenza into a marketing advantage by touting a new air conditioner model as protection against the H5N1 virus, a company official in Vietnam said yesterday. The South Korean company says the air conditioner uses an acidic extract of kimchi, the country's famed pickled cabbage, to kill the virus in the air with its micro-organism filters. The H5N1 virus is not now an airborne strain contagious among humans, but fears that it might become so will likely increase the appeal of the unit, according to Tran Trung Kien, LG's Vietnam marketing manager. The LG Neo Plasma Plus, which at US$560 costs about 30 percent more than a standard air-conditioning unit, will go on sale late next month in Southeast Asia, Kien said.
■ Labor
China facing job shortage
China's cities are facing serious employment problems with only 11 million new urban jobs expected to be created this year but 25 million people needing to find work, the government said yesterday. The National Development and Reform Commission, the government's main economic planning department, said the shortage of 14 million jobs was around one million more than last year. "It will be a tough challenge to tackle employment pressure," the commission said in a report posted on its Web site. Nationwide, around 17 million new job-seekers are expected to enter the labour market this year, while millions of others will be laid off, further fueling the need to create more jobs, it said. Sixty percent of those 17 million job-seekers will come from rural areas, who will be mainly looking for jobs in the cities. By the end of the year 4.13 million college graduates, 750,000 more than last year, will also be seeking jobs, according to the report.
■ Labor
German strike expanded
German public workers expanded their week-old strike across the country on Monday in a dispute over plans to make some employees work 40 hours a week compared to their current 38.5 hours. Some 22,000 public workers in eight of Germany's 16 federal states stopped work on Monday, the Ver.di labor union said. They included garbage collectors, theater clerks and administrative staff and cleaners at government-owned hospitals. The biggest stoppage in public services for 14 years began a week ago with rolling strikes in two states.
■ Aviation
Hong Kong to host air show
Hong Kong will host the world's third-biggest aerospace show beginning next year after Singapore, which is setting up its own event, will be dropped as a joint organizer after 26 years. Asian Aerospace will move to Hong Kong from September next year, Reed Exhibitions, a unit of London-based Reed Elsevier Plc, said in an e-mailed invitation to a press conference today. Singapore, which is hosting Asian Aerospace for the last time this month, is planning a government-backed show in 2008. Boeing Co, the world's second-biggest commercial aircraft maker, and US defense contractors Lockheed Martin Corp and Northrop Grumman Corp have signed up to exhibit at the Changi International Airshow.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique